Little Oil inferno off I-95 could have been worse

Tag : Oil Pipeline Valves
SLIDESHOW

On a humid June night in 1975, a Colonial Pipeline Co. employee wasat work in the company's pumping station on Richmond's South Side.
He was on the phone a few minutes past midnight when he saw ablinding flash of light through the windows, and the buildingshook. Minutes later, he heard calls for help and jerked open thestation's door to find a disoriented man with burned clothes andblackened face. The injured man was Morris Englehart, an employeeof Little Oil Co., who had crossed Interstate 95 in search of help.
The men were part of what the June 26, 1975, RichmondTimes-Dispatch called "one of the most spectacular fires inthe city's history." Throughout that day, firefighters battleda gasoline-fed inferno that threatened to become one of Richmond'sbiggest disasters.
The sequence of events started when Englehart, an employee ofLittle Oil Co. at 1641 Commerce Road., drove to the company'sfuel-tank yard between I-95 and the James River. The company waspreparing to receive fuel, and Englehart had to open tank valves.Englehart, who eventually recovered from his burns, was alone atthe yard when two mammoth tanks, holding a combined total of850,000 gallons of gasoline, exploded in flames.
Though fire officials later decided that Englehart's automobileignition had sparked the blaze, first reports in the June 26Times-Dispatch said an errant lightning bolt from a distantthunderstorm was believed responsible.
The burning tanks stood next to each other in the company'sfive-tank yard, just south of I-95's Maury Street exit. Nearby werethree other huge storage tanks, each holding 1 million to 2 milliongallons of oil or kerosene.
As if that were not enough, the scenario held a greater threat. Notfar from the Little Oil Co. yard were tanks belonging to AmericanOil, Gulf Oil, Southern Fuel Oil and Union Oil companies. If onetank after another ignited, fire officials said the danger was realthat flames and burning fuel could reach nearby neighborhoods.
Despite the early hour, residents throughout the city had seen andheard the explosion, and within the hour nearly half the city'sfire units were at the scene. By 2 a.m., the interstate had beenclosed from Maury Street south to state Route 10. By dawn, morethan 100 area firefighters battled the flames.
"At about 7 a.m., the fire suddenly exploded higher into theair and the intensified heat drove firemen away from theblaze," The Richmond News Leader reported that afternoon.Trucks carrying chemical foam used to smother fuel fires arrivedfrom Fort Lee and Byrd International Airport by midmorning, but thequantities of foam were insufficient. While the fire raged and onetank ruptured and melted, firefighters could do no more than try tocontain the blaze by dousing nearby tanks with water.
Meanwhile, rerouted interstate traffic snaked through the city asdrivers craned to watch flames that at times soared 500 feet.Office workers in downtown Richmond high-rises stood by windows allday. Many spent their lunch hours at City Hall's observation deck."Why in hell," one observer asked, "is somethinglike that so near a national interstate?"
Reinforcements arrived in late afternoon. "The U.S. Navy wassending trucks loaded with 223 barrels of 'light water' fromNorfolk this afternoon," said The News Leader's last editionof the day. "This is water mixed with fire-retardantchemicals. A Navy spokesman said light water was developed onlyrecently and this may be the first major fire it's been usedon." The Navy also was bringing an "experimentalfoam-spraying tractor," capable of propelling the light-watermixture nearly 300 feet.
With the help of the military and a surprise thunderstorm thatredirected flames away from the nearby tanks, fire officialsdeclared the blaze extinguished at 7:11 p.m. -- 19 hours after itbegan.
"We were lucky to get out of this one," a wearyfirefighter said as he surveyed the smoldering scene.